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Kaleigh Baker takes on the music of Tom Waits for Blue Year's Eve

As of press time, we’ve managed to make it through 2016 – a year fraught with celebrity deaths – without losing singular American songwriter and performance artist Tom Waits. But if we’ve learned anything from this year, it’s that it’s just a matter of time before things get worse. That fatalistic outlook has been a hallmark of plenty of Waits songs over the years, like 2002’s Blood Money standouts “Everything Goes to Hell” and “God’s Away on Business.” For New Year’s Eve, local Waits devotee Kaleigh Baker – who routinely inhabits the same dimly lit, whiskey-soaked musical terroir as Waits – offers up an entire evening to his songs, interpreting them in her distinctly powerful voice with accompaniment from some of Orlando’s best musicians. Something of a moody alternative to the raucous New Year’s Eve party featuring Jello Biafra next door, Baker’s Blue Year’s Eve only has a limited number of tickets available, eliminating the shoulder-to-shoulder cramped vibe that a busy night at Lil Indies can result in. To accompany the night of Kaleigh and Co. using beautiful melodies to tell you terrible things, Indies is working on a special all-Tom Waits-inspired menu, a slight break from their usual one-Tom Waits-themed-drink per seasonal menu policy.